Adobe Illustrator

I thought the Star Wars: The Force Awakens was an enjoyable, if flawed movie. My rating is around 8 out of 10. What really annoys me are the complaints that Rey is a “Mary Sue” (she’s perfect at everything, beats Kylo Ren, etc.). On one hand it is a slight flaw in the movie, on the other hand male characters have had uber quick learning abilities for at least a century. If someone is only noticing this phenomenon now because Rey is a woman that is a bit troubling.

I put a few movies on this graph that share the same “problem” as Force Awakens and just so everyone knows: I like all these films. The 2009 Star Trek reboot has the worst case of this trope since Captain Kirk never really grows through the course of the movie, a problem the filmmakers tried addressing in the less successful follow up Star Trek: Into Darkness.

This is a fellow of my acquaintance called Steve. Steve is remarkable. I’ve known cats who seemed very intelligent, I’ve known cats who were quite dumb, but I’ve never met one who is both to such a high degree. Yes, Steve is the smartest and dumbest cat I’ve ever encountered.

These peaks and valleys of Steve’s intellect make him the perfect subject for a cartoon/comic strip (think Sylvester). That doesn’t mean I’m going to produce one, since that would involve going through a ton of tutorials and re-learning Flash, but I can hone and practice my Adobe Illustrator skills designing a caricature. This drawing is my first go at creating a cartoon cat, and to be honest, I don’t think I’m there yet. It’s not “cartoony” enough and lacks a certain fluidity. The paws should be bigger and the face is too realistic. For my next drawing I will leave out the colour all together and focus entirely on the design and dimensions.

As for Steve, he has a bad case of cabin fever waiting for this interminable winter to end so he can chase mice and birds to his heart’s content.

UPDATE

I traced the vector illustration in Photoshop and came up with this black and white drawing. While it still needs refinement I find this drawing has more life and dynamism then the vector illustration. The next step will be changing the pose of the cat to be more natural.

UPDATE 2

Here is the tracing filled with colour. I’m pretty happy with how it looks, so the next goal is creating new sketches from different angles and positions using the same style.